The Coffee Trader is a suspenseful historical novel about a commodities trader in 1659 Amsterdam who hatches a bold scheme to corner the fledgling coffee market. Miguel Lienzo, a Portuguese Jew who fled to Amsterdam to escape the Inquisition, is a trader on the Exchange. When he sees an opportunity to build his fortune by controlling the coffee market, he can’t resist, despite the many risks.
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Lawrence Sanders’s Edward X. Delaney series comprises five great detective thrillers set in New York City from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. Books 2 through 5 are the “Deadly Sins” novels. Suspenseful, well-written, and insightful, all five books are a pleasure to read.
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‘The Various Flavors of Coffee’ by Anthony Capella is a captivating historical novel that follows the life and loves of Robert Wallis, a bohemian would-be poet whose life is dramatically changed by a cup of coffee. One morning at the Café Royal in London in 1896, a coffee merchant overhears Wallis’s remark that his coffee is “rusty” and offers him a job to help develop a standard “vocabulary of coffee.” Accepting the challenge, Wallis embarks on a journey in the coffee trade that will transform his life.
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Coffee quotations from classic literary works, including novels, poetry, and more, are a testament to coffee’s longstanding popularity and to the enduring link between reading and coffee. This article highlights a small sample of favorite coffee quotations from classic works of literature.
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‘Explorers House’ charts the history of the National Geographic Society and ‘National Geographic’ magazine. Written by a former executive editor of the magazine, it offers a fascinating inside look at the organization and its leaders.
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W. J. Cash’s ‘The Mind of the South,’ first published in 1941, is a seminal work of scholarship about the American South. It has defined the way in which the South has been viewed by Northerners and Southerners alike.
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This wonderful collection of first-person reminiscences from 26 old-time major league baseball players is filled with informative and entertaining anecdotes. The players’ stories about their lives and careers really make the early days of baseball come alive.
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American Midnight examines certain dark elements of life that arguably reached their nadir in the United States in the years from 1917 to 1921. It is an excellent book that should serve as a warning to contemporary Americans about the fragility of our democracy.
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In this warm and heartfelt memoir, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin describes her suburban childhood on Long Island and the love for the Brooklyn Dodgers that she shared with her father. She credits her fascination with baseball as one factor leading her to become a historian.
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This collection of short stories represents some of Faulkner’s first published prose pieces. Faulkner wrote the stories while he was living in New Orleans in 1924 and 1925 and most were published there. Only a few hold up on their own, but the book is worth reading to see an early glimmer of Faulkner’s talent.
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